C_A_ Ivy I get the mourning cloaks only not many this time of year ,, Cooler seasons the Cloaks appear ... Thank you for the flower compliments ,!!! I Love the pics , you add here TOO !!!
Domehomedee I did not compliment you on the Tiger Swallowtail pic ,, Lovely .
And here is something we do want to see fall to extinction either ,, Lot of folks here deserve much of the gratitude , of many , for the efforts being made ,,
A couple of these today..^_^
OOoh! I have not been keeping up with my BF buds on DG.
Ottahand….
“The Fritillary is only the second one I have had on the property all summer. “ Loved the picture, first one I remember of that frit.
Vitrsna….. Lovely picture of Banded Peacock!!
Juhur7…..Lovely patch of color. I have loads of zinnia seeds but never seem to get any in soil!!
Mrs Ed……Glad you chose not to burst! Double glad he came back for pic!
Dome..dee……I had someone in my Nextdoor.com neighborhood that showed up at my door also. I enjoyed meeting her and showing her my yard but all the time wondering just how anyone would have the guts to knock on a stranger’s door and ask to look around the gardens. She had seen my Monarch Watch Sanctuary sign for one.
BTW, if any of you haven’t heard of Nextdoor.com, you need to check it out. It is a website that provides individual website space for neighbors to talk to each other. You can also see what other neighborhoods around you post if they allow you to. Post are crime related, lost and found, garage sales, discuss school, and event planning for things like National Night Out. Hubby and I started the one here in our neighborhood and have 337 neighbors so far.
This SWT hopping around , no longer able to fly , At the end of the time , It was feeding on watermelon for it's last meal .. And started hopping around trying to fly again (sigh ..
Did see a couple of looking new SWT's back there though ^_^
I found this praying mantis on a milkweed (loaded with small Queen caterpillars) this morning. She looked very well fed. Do you suppose she may have been eating the small caterpillars? I offered her my hand hoping to place her on a plant with some chubby aphids. She declined my hand but did move to another plant. Would they eat small caterpillars around 1/2" in size?
vitrsna, praying mantis love caterpillars. They wiped out most of the small Cloudless sulphur cats on a Sennae plant in my yard last week. I moved them to marigolds where they now catch skippers.
Don't like it but its nature, predator / prey.
Thanks for the info CA. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your Cloudless sulphurs and i do hope some survive. Yes, this is difficult, but nature is designed to maintain a balance. The problem is humans came along and disrupted the balance because we thought we could do things better.
BOY! I have missed so much here! I have been crazy busy preparing and then co-ordinating a Trap -Neuter-Return project for a colony of 22-30 cats (Feline Cats, not Caterpillars, LOL)in my neighborhood. I barely had time to clip milkweed for my monarch caterpillars each morning and evening. 2coccooned wednesday and the remaining 3 are hanging J's as of this morning. perhaps they have already coccooned. I spied at least 7 more monarch cats in my butterfly/hummingbird garden. Can't decide if I should bring them in, or leave it to nature. I am afraid of wasps doing their awful egg depositing on my monarch caterpillars, or any other harmful thing. I will probably get them this evening.
I'm not seeing many cats on plants ,,
Today some visitors .
Isabella moth cat on tickseed (wild (forb) etc weed . (otherwise , for folklore followers , an all tan wooly bear ! lol..
monarch 2-3
Question mark or Comma . The way this has been drying wings , Believe it to be Question Mark Hatching from the nettle ?
Silver Spotted Skipper Lots of these the past month or so ..
This message was edited Aug 29, 2014 2:49 PM
pic #4 I was wrong , it is more likely a Comma ,, full white lower trim , absence of dark shading , not much upper hook curl point to wings or no lighter shading of upper wing points or hooking , suggests probably Comma ,, .. oh well ...
Did get the Nettle part correct though .lol
J7, you were correct that the new BF is a Question Mark. I enlarged the photo and noted the dash at the apical end of the three large spots on the forewing. Commas only have the three spots.
Your zinnias are doing great. I'm convinced of their value and beauty and I will plant more next year.
Thank you C_A_Ivy ,, Unusually light coloration for Question Mark ,,? I am seeing a few every week ..
Here is the Cloudless Sulpher , Eastern SWT pic did not photo well .
Lots of visitors today !^_^ Typically August ..
This is the third Today besides a fly by . They look to be puddling or drying their newly e-closed wings ,, Hatching that Summer brood today .
I know they love hot weather , and this is a larger one than earlier , nice new colorform .. Beautiful wing color
Wish I could do better pics , but , their viewable ..
Their coming from between the Burdock and Milkweed thicket about 9 ft from the nettle ..
Skippers everywhere ,,
Yes ,I over do it , with Zinnia , but the cosmos, Salvia several herbs and Milkweeds are all in there also ,, Zinnia are being showy though
Information says cats of Question mark are usually solitary and find lone host plants .
Not so true in this case as 3 today ,
And the pic above , see where Burdock leaf tore when adult emerged from cocoon ..
And the green triangle on the leaf just beneath the BF above ,, there is a cocoon of another still hanging underneath there ..
Yes ,, I am playing some today .. lol ^_^
I think the orange butterfly weed is their ultimate favorite. I do see many butterfly on the zinnia.
Today I watched a monarch flutter over hundreds of zinnia, but it was as if it was searching for something that was not there.
Looks like those first two were posing for you.
The monarch cats have finally arrived. My grand-daughter, Nat (6), has been collecting them and putting them in the catapillar enclosure. One we collected two days ago has already cocooned. My first release, two weeks ago, the butterfly came out of the enclosure landed on my chest and paused for a moment, as if to say thanks for protecting me, and then flew off.
brendak654) Well I least you have one they stop at for you to watch and enjoy ,,
I have seen many refuse the Zinnia for a forb, ETC , honeyvine , thistle , Sunflower , All in what seems to fit their search , sort of like , Taco Salad or Hamburger , or BBQ , For a stop among us ,,
Nice pair of SWT there ! ^_^ Those are a gorgeous BF ^_^
No pics today but saw a Black SWT and a Couple of Hummingbirds ,,
Visited my son at Caney Creek near Stilwell, OK. yesterday. Lots of chubby Monarch caterpillars on Swamp milkweed which is plentiful this year. A good sign for future Monarchs Also every batch of watercress was loaded with Buckeye caterpillars.
Swamp milkweed is a butterfly magnet when in bloom and a vital host plant for Monarchs at this time of year.
Ivy , nice pics enjoying here !!!
I find it interesting that Buckeye cats on Watercress , (a Brassica , mustard , family plant ,
The season I had a bunch of snapdragons here , I found Buckeye eating and hatching on the mustard also ,,
Plantago here , but no cats ,, I have seen one Buckeye all this season , back in 2008 , I had to wave off waves of them , only to walk around ,, and they would land on my head , face arms hand , everywhere they could rest a minute ! strange nature is ...
I will post these here also - not many views of the other post I did yesterday. Monarch heaven at our favorite organic farmer's cut flower garden.
Absolutely love your pictures ottahand.
Ottahand ,, some one has a Zinnia and a monarch party besides me !!! lol
thanks for the look !!!
Hi all - hope everyone has a great labor day. I'm seeing 3 to 4 gulf frits a day now, and have 4 gulf frit chrysalides, 5 eggs, and 5 cats in the butterfly habitat ... fun, fun, fun. I was so entranced on Friday evening, I actually witnessed the egg laying! Which was a first for me, so it was quite magical.
Also saw an american lady today - I know they are common throughout the US, but first one I've seen this year, so always a pick me up to see a friend return to visit.
I must say, I am simply not happy with the Monarchs - you invite them to visit, plant loads of milkweek, even check said milkweed and SQUISH hordes of nasty, vile yellow aphids regularly so as to keep their "guestroom" tidy, and the ungrateful beasts don't even come visit. Well bless their heart, that's all I can say about them.
I have CATS! Four Monarchs, finally. I said, "praise be my fairy butterflies." How did I miss that?!
Funny too - my plants are short just a couple/few months old. I was late starting them so, good thing I have plenty of swamp MW at the back of the yard.
I think they have finally arrived. I now have 22 cats and 2 new cocoons in my enclosure. I also noticed another one on my native milkweed and there were two butterflies flitting about in the garden! This all happened within the past three days! I have lots of small plants in gallon pots and a few large plants in the garden. I'm glad I never put an ad on Craig's list to sell the excess milkweed plants because now I will have enough for my own cats.
Congrats on the monarch cats. They are here too. Counted at least 24 monarch cats on one lonely milkweed at the Arkansas River Valley Nature Center. Since I don't have the facilities or milkweed, I will just observe their development in nature.
Having odd behavior - one died over night - was not looking well when I found it curled up on the soil in the potted plant.
I have 5 outside mostly 2nd instar. they have all left the plants and pulsing around.. I put them in one container to keep from losing any, and also added some different MW. Maybe my young seedlings (6"-8" high) don't have the proper nutrition? (A. currassavica).
I have common MW and purple MW and some Swamp MW, maybe some A. exalta in case they have stopped eating, but their momma laid them on the tropical MW seedlings/plants.
Curious.
A.
Thanks for the new page, Sheila. :)
FYI - I do finally have Monarch cats - caught me completely by surprise. 6 of them healthy, one just failing to thrive. Will take precious care of those in my charge.
Nice work as usual Bruce.
'Tis the season!
A.
out of all the eggs I brought in, only two hatched. One cat died in 3rd instal, and the other one successfully eclosed as a female. Never had good luck with those. finally saw my first black swallowtail female. She was not ovipositing, but let's hope she did and I'll have some late cats. I have way better luck with those.
Monarch cats and BSWT cats are easy for me , Most of keeping them works okay .
The Tussock Moth cats quit eating and when I kept the Cabbage White cats they also quit eating when I put them in a container ,
So I let them go in the garden .
I am still seeing a few Monarchs and an Occasional BST with Brand new wings . So their still Happening in the garden .. I'm not good at catching most caterpillars either ..
I have watched full life cycles of Monarch
Cabbage White
B,SWT
Question Mark
Pearl Crescent
Red Admiral
Not An exceptional year ,, but good Possibly earlier the Mourning Cloak was wintering here and did their earlier brood , but I did not see any except a caterpillar last season (one)
Amanda and Ivy - congrats on the Monarch cats!
Still no Monarch cats. here. On my way home from the Al. Gulf Coast vacation. I thought I spotted some "orange" butterflies. I hope those are the new arrivals. My eyes have been peeled back for those tiny eggs on my MWs, but thus far there is none.
On the up beat note; I've released 3 BSTs butterflies. There are nearly 2 more dozens chrysalides awaiting for eclosures. Happy butterflies gardening everyone.
It's been a while, believe it or not, since I've had a sulphur in my yard. Here's a very cooperative Orange Sulphur.
Not sure which butterfly this is, but it is not one I see often. It looks like it has been in a battle with all the damage to the wings. I was deadheading zinnia yesterday and nothing do, but it land and feed beside me.
Buggin in Cherokee Chute , OK. near Arkansas River. Lots of butterflies puddling on dirt roads after yesterday's rain. Red spotted purples, Painted ladies, Red admirals and a stray from down south, a Queen. But really a stray? It appeared to still be expanding its wings after eclosing. Flew to some nearby honey vine milkweed and nectared the flowers.
My photo did not come through the first time - Will try this again. Not sure which butterfly this is, but it is not one I see often. It looks like it has had a rough time with all the damage to the lower wings. I was deadheading zinnia day before yesterday, and nothing do but it land and feed beside of me. Lucky me with the camera. Help me out with the species
Here are a few from the Zinnia patch. My camera was running out of juice so maybe there will be more flyers there next time. The Monarchs are running the Black Swallowtails out of the garden. There are quite a few of the Silver Spotted Skippers there also.
I could use some ID help on the Fritillary - It was very small for a frit. It has the blue gray eyes and silver border of the Atlantis but the spot on the forewing doesn' look like any of my photos. This photo was taken in northern MD.
Brenda654 Variegated or meadow Fritillary , I go for Variegated
ottahand7 That is a Spotted fritillary . I would guess . I can see three dots
A possibility ,, A Baltimore species I am not familiar with ,
I am not real good at ID definition myself ... The alignment of the Black Dots on the wings still say Meadow Fritillary though ...
This message was edited Sep 4, 2014 3:47 PM
brendak654 your beautiful frit is a Great Spangled fritillary.
ottahand your frit is a Variegated fritillary. Their size varies based upon the amount of host plant available to the caterpillar. I've seen them the size of a small crescent to as large as a Tiger swallowtail.
Otta… I'd go Variegated Fritillary on that one, depending on how big it was. if it was very small then I'd go for Silver-bordered Fritillary.
Brenda… I'd say Aphrodite Fritillary, just seems to big for meadow. Not enough banding for Variegated.
Like said I have seen a few this year , not a many though ,,
Last Great Spangled frit I saw was the size of a large red spotted purple , sitting in an apple tree about three seasons ago ,, Big Butterfly ..
Saw a monarch today , it was camera shy , and people shy also ,, Only ones we usually get here of the Fritillary , are Meadow and Variegated , only as said ,, the Great Spangled makes rare appearances as does another with a common reference as a Texas three Spotted Fritillary
That pic a while back of a meadow Fritillary Variegated has the Darker upper wings shaded in /
